Could Andrew Wakefield Lose Any More Credibility?

Anti-vaccine activists have been dealt another blow.  Reported worldwide today is the news that the 1998 study, published by a group of authors led by Andrew Wakefield, originally published and last year retracted by the British medical journal Lancet, was based upon falsified data.  It seems some of the subjects of the study, reported to be normal prior to their dose of MMR vaccine, had in fact shown signs of developmental problems prior to the vaccine.  

Scores of other studies have found no link between vaccines and autism, though the outcome of those studies and the complete discrediting of the Wakefield study will likely not sway those that strongly believe autism and vaccinations are linked.  Most of these people are driven to and keep their position out of fear.  Fear is an extremely strong emotion, and fear for the safety of one's child is especially strong, in many cases stronger than a parent's own self-preservation instincts.  Undoubtedly some parents already on the anti-vaccine path will not be moved to change their perspective, even when all potential evidence to support their fears is gone.

The fact is that vaccinations, after clean water, are one of the most impactful cultural and/or scientific developments to decrease mortality.  Vaccines can ERADICATE diseases that would otherwise kill or maim scores of people, many of which are children.  To deprive a child of potentially life SAVING preventative treatment is more scary in my mind than any vaccine.

Kids get vaccinations.  Some kids (for some reason yet to be explained and incredibly unlikely to be vaccinations) are stricken with autism.  Vaccines don't cause autism, just like high school doesn't cause pimples.  Just because they happen at the same point in life, doesn't mean there is a causal relationship.